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[Eddie-Griffin]

(many gifs in this thread)
When people think of early 3D filled polygonal gaming, they think Playstation or Jaguar, something around that time frame. But that skips over the real "early" generation of 3D gaming graphics you could play on your TV or monitor. The Amiga, Acorn Archimedes 32, and Atari ST were home to the original early 3D gaming generation with a frequent output of releases.

Let's take a look at some showcase titles, you may have even played or seen some of these before.


Driller/Space Station Oblivion (ST, 1987)

Interphase (1989 ST)

Castle Master (ST 1990)

Thunder Strike (ST 1990)

Virtua Fighter (ST 1991)

(Actually it's 4D Sports boxing)

RoboCop 3 (ST 1991)

Hunter (ST 1991)

F1 Grand Prix (ST 1991)

No Second Prize (ST 1992)

Mercenary III (ST 1992)

Frontier Elite 2 (ST 1993)

Simulcra (Amiga 1990)

Formula 1 3D (Amiga 1991)

Battle Cars (Amiga 1991)

Guardian (Amiga 1994)

Zarch (Acorn Arc32 1987)

Galactic Dan (Acorn Arc32 1992)

Star Fighter (Acorn Arc32 1994)

Dark Wood (Acorn Arc32 1995)

<>
Yep, this is what the console players were missing. 3D gaming as early as the late 80's into the early 1990's. The power of the Home Micro allowed for powerful graphical prowess that let everyone behind early, including PC which didn't catch up until 1993, which is also when consoles started catching up, well the expensive 3D One caught up anyway.

One issue with the Amiga 3D games though is it was the most spastic and had some pretty bad frame rates and sudden drops out of nowhere during gameplay. Amiga had power but it had limits with 3D due to its architecture and slow processor. The other two handled 3D better, but the Amiga could do some surprising things with its hardware. Considering the Atari St can handle 3D better and was designed to save costs is pretty impressive, and Acorn is where the RISC came from so that's a given.

Amiga could handle those pseudo-3d 2D games really dang well though, and 2D in general. If you wanted those scaling arcade games without the console compromise you basically had to get an Amiga, and in some cases, an St for that advanced 2d goodness, which I think makes up for the 3D flaws, ST is the one for 3D, Amiga for 2D, Acorn for complex 3D.

 

[AMSCD]

Great thread. Dark Wood looks really interesting. Did it have manual camera controls?

 

[93xfan]

Interesting to see. Thanks OP

 

[Soltype]

I remember terminator because it had human npcs.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Most of these games I never heard of. I dont think many gamers did... at least not here. Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn(?). Most of these games probably came to PC, but since most people's PCs were crap at the time to handle 3D, I dont think too many gamers devoted much time to these games. It was too early.

But for early 90s, these games look pretty good. Zarch looks great.

 

[AMSCD]

Most of these games I never heard of. I dont think many gamers did... at least not here. Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn(?). Most of these games probably came to PC, but since most people's PCs were crap at the time to handle 3D, I dont think too many gamers devoted much time to these games. It was too early.

But for early 90s, these games look pretty good. Zarch looks great.

Yea what is an Acorn?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Yea what is an Acorn?

Wiki says a line of computers in the UK.

Zarch looks incredible actually. Amazing its a 1987 game. Although, the audio is the worst ever.

 

[AMSCD]

Wiki says a line of computers in the UK.

Zarch looks incredible actually. Amazing its a 1987 game. Although, the audio is the worst ever.

Damn that is some shit ass audio. But it looks really great for 1987.

 

[ABnormal]

There are even prior examples on C64, like castle master and stunt car racer (this one really impressive)

 

[AMSCD]

Interesting video about the Acorn

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Damn that is some shit ass audio. But it looks really great for 1987.

At least we all know the audio cost zero. How much does it cost to borrow a friend's guitar and record 3 off-key guitar riffs? Zero.

 

[AMSCD]

At least we all know the audio cost zero. How much does it cost to borrow a friend's guitar and record 3 off-key guitar riffs? Zero.

An actual audio recording would have been far too large of a file. Everything was midi back then.

 

[alienator]

An actual audio recording would have been far too large of a file. Everything was midi back then.

Everything was mods back then, 4 channel protracker stuff with 8 bit samples, well mostly 3 channels and 1 channel for sfx (atleast on amiga) none of the computers had native midi support and all required hardware addons. there are however some games that support midi.

 

[Alan Silvestro]

What a wonderful game was Mercenary 3 on atari st...

 

[Alan Silvestro]

Don't forget Hunter for Amiga and Atari st!

 

[Alan Silvestro]

Also Killing Cloud and Resolution 101 (amiga, st, dos) were great titles in the 16 bit era.

 

[Fredrik]

Most of these games I never heard of. I dont think many gamers did... at least not here.

Going by the poll earlier we’re mostly old folks here and the Amiga 500 has some popularity here I think, anyone who grew up with that stumbled over at least some of these games. I think I’ve played almost all of them.

I played lots of Starglider 2 (released 1988) as well, not mentioned here, it was like an early No Man’s Sky, seamless travel from planet to planet down to the surface.



As talked about above, Hunter (released 1981) was special too, lots of freedom, open-world, multiple vehicles, great game.

 

[nkarafo]

Wiki says a line of computers in the UK.

Zarch looks incredible actually. Amazing its a 1987 game. Although, the audio is the worst ever.

Do the particles cast shadows on the ground?

Holy shit...

I don't think there was anything as impressive in 1987, not even in the arcades.

 

[T-Cake]

Yea what is an Acorn?

Only the predecessor of ARM whose processors are used in nearly all mobile tech these days.

 

[SpokkX]

Nice thread!

I was not aware that atari st handled 3d better. I always thought amiga was superior in every way (when it came to gaming)

Was there a big framerate difference in the same game?

 

[Fredrik]

The Zarch Acorn game was called Virus on the Amiga btw

 

[CeeJay]

Yea what is an Acorn?

Acorn, the company started by the guy who went on to start ARM using the RISC philosophy hatched during his Acorn days.

The BBC micro was huge in the UK in the early 80s, they were in nearly every school. Anyone born in the 70s in the UK will have used one. Acorn went on to create the bubget friendly Electron and the premium Archemedes.

The original Elite on the Acorn Election was my first taste of 3D graphics.

 

[Elysion]

What exactly is the ‘Acorn Archimedes 32’? Wikipedia says there’s an Acorn Archimedes 300 series from 1987, as well as an ‘3020’ model from 1992; but I can’t find anything about a ‘32’ model. Dark Wood in particular looks impressive; if that actually runs on the 300 model from 1987 then that would be truly amazing. But if it’s the 3020 model from 1992 then not quite as much.

 

[Duchess]

I don't think any us from back in the Amiga / ST days could've imagined how much graphics would evolve over the next 30 years.

If I were able to show my younger self Horizon: Forbidden West, Returnal, and God of War, he (I) wouldn't believe it to be real.

It might actually be comparable to Oblivion on PS3. Emerging from that dungeon into the open world, I just stared.

 

[SirTerry-T]

(many gifs in this thread)
When people think of early 3D filled polygonal gaming, they think Playstation or Jaguar, something around that time frame. But that skips over the real "early" generation of 3D gaming graphics you could play on your TV or monitor. The Amiga, Acorn Archimedes 32, and Atari ST were home to the original early 3D gaming generation with a frequent output of releases.

Let's take a look at some showcase titles, you may have even played or seen some of these before.


Driller/Space Station Oblivion (ST, 1987)

Interphase (1989 ST)

Castle Master (ST 1990)

Thunder Strike (ST 1990)

Virtua Fighter (ST 1991)

(Actually it's 4D Sports boxing)

RoboCop 3 (ST 1991)

Hunter (ST 1991)

F1 Grand Prix (ST 1991)

No Second Prize (ST 1992)

Mercenary III (ST 1992)

Frontier Elite 2 (ST 1993)

Simulcra (Amiga 1990)

Formula 1 3D (Amiga 1991)

Battle Cars (Amiga 1991)

Guardian (Amiga 1994)

Zarch (Acorn Arc32 1987)

Galactic Dan (Acorn Arc32 1992)

Star Fighter (Acorn Arc32 1994)

Dark Wood (Acorn Arc32 1995)

<>
Yep, this is what the console players were missing. 3D gaming as early as the late 80's into the early 1990's. The power of the Home Micro allowed for powerful graphical prowess that let everyone behind early, including PC which didn't catch up until 1993, which is also when consoles started catching up, well the expensive 3D One caught up anyway.

One issue with the Amiga 3D games though is it was the most spastic and had some pretty bad frame rates and sudden drops out of nowhere during gameplay. Amiga had power but it had limits with 3D due to its architecture and slow processor. The other two handled 3D better, but the Amiga could do some surprising things with its hardware. Considering the Atari St can handle 3D better and was designed to save costs is pretty impressive, and Acorn is where the RISC came from so that's a given.

Amiga could handle those pseudo-3d 2D games really dang well though, and 2D in general. If you wanted those scaling arcade games without the console compromise you basically had to get an Amiga, and in some cases, an St for that advanced 2d goodness, which I think makes up for the 3D flaws, ST is the one for 3D, Amiga for 2D, Acorn for complex 3D.

The 8 bits were doing it before then....



The Speccy even had a 3d authoring package as part of its suite of pack in software.



These early 3d games were the one style of game where the ZX Spectrum could have bragging rights over any C64 version.....the 64's processor just wasn't as capable for that style of game.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Very interesting to see. Pre-N64 3d is always pretty rough.

 

[kurisu_1974]

My first 3D games we're on the Atari XE in 1984 or something.

The Eidolon



Rescue on Fractalus

 

[SF Kosmo]

I remember terminator because it had human npcs.

This game was way ahead of its time, it was this real freeform sandbox cat and mouse sort of thing, and the first open world game Bethesda ever did.

Don't forget Hunter for Amiga and Atari st!

This game is also like a proto-GTA in a lot of ways, it's open world, you can hijack vehicles, or go on foot, on-screen mini map in the corner. It had all those elements and it's all very freeform and dynamic. Really cool stuff.

Mercenary III (ST 1992)

I mean Mercenary III okay, but the first two got there earlier. And that first Mercenary, for as primitive as the graphics were, was crazy ambitious, not just giving you an open world, but multiple solutions to puzzles and paths through the game.


There is a freeware port of the Mercenary trilogy and I highly recommend it to anyone who has never experienced those games.

 

[pachura]

I had an Amiga. Apart from flight/space/driving simulators, most 3D-vector games were ugly, slow, with horrible framerates and clunky controls. Robocop 3 was basically unplayable.

I remember one game very fondly: Alianator. It was a space shooter; there was a giant alien mothership hanging above, releasing different types of enemies that you had to take down. It was great!

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Great thread. Dark Wood looks really interesting. Did it have manual camera controls?

Yes

My first 3D games we're on the Atari XE in 1984 or something.

The Eidolon



Rescue on Fractalus

Not the same type of 3D but impressive none the less, I played the Rescue on Fractulus variation on the 5200.

This game was way ahead of its time, it was this real freeform sandbox cat and mouse sort of thing, and the first open world game Bethesda ever did.



This game is also like a proto-GTA in a lot of ways, it's open world, you can hijack vehicles, or go on foot, on-screen mini map in the corner. It had all those elements and it's all very freeform and dynamic. Really cool stuff.




I mean Mercenary III okay, but the first two got there earlier. And that first Mercenary, for as primitive as the graphics were, was crazy ambitious, not just giving you an open world, but multiple solutions to puzzles and paths through the game.


There is a freeware port of the Mercenary trilogy and I highly recommend it to anyone who has never experienced those games.

Until Mercenary II Mercenary diidn't have filled pplygons though. Also II and III are more open-world GTA like. Mercenarys outline games were fun though and still are interesting to play now though not as good.

Very interesting to see. Pre-N64 3d is always pretty rough.

Some of the flat shaded games look better visually just because there's no compromise in pushing detail, I find N64 graphics to age poorly for the most part because of that, also the blur and wash out. Which early 3D avoided, including in arcades like VF.

What exactly is the ‘Acorn Archimedes 32’? Wikipedia says there’s an Acorn Archimedes 300 series from 1987, as well as an ‘3020’ model from 1992; but I can’t find anything about a ‘32’ model. Dark Wood in particular looks impressive; if that actually runs on the 300 model from 1987 then that would be truly amazing. But if it’s the 3020 model from 1992 then not quite as much.

Acorn Arc is 32-bit that's why it's sometimes called the Acorn 32, even the wikipedia page mentions it's 32-bit so you must have glossed over it. Darkwood was made on odder hardware, the newer hardware grew to eventually support the 3D games you saw on accelerated PC's after 1993, so Darkwood would have not likely used Sprites for the characters if it was on newer hardware, and the ground tiles would have been more detailed. Thise wouldn't become more affordable for many computer game creates until the end of the year and into 1996 funny enough.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Most of these games I never heard of. I dont think many gamers did... at least not here. Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn(?). Most of these games probably came to PC,

PC was behind other computers until 1993 for most gaming, especially before 1992 where it was pretty much a blow out. If you were "gaming" any any computer before the death of competition and the bulge of PC clones you were gaming on those computers, which had among the most known games and were many eventual PC developers came from. From the 70's till then you were pretty much gaming on a non-IBM or PC clone hardware if you actually wanted games, and is where the first waves of mass computer adoption happened, so you had millions of gamers playing across these systems.

It's been so long since 1994 (or 1996/7 for Acorn) that when PC became defacto that people forget that PC wasn't always a thing, and computers and consoles were separate industries with marginal overlap so the most console gamers would see if anything was them grabbing magazines or going on some internet group and seeing screenshots and wondering when consoles will get there.

Coincidentally, consoles caught up the same year as PC, 1993, with 3DO, which also has a much superior version of Acorns Star Fighter graphically.

There are even prior examples on C64, like castle master and stunt car racer (this one really impressive)

Releases weren't frequent though due to heavy compromise, and some were downports done to cash-in, Castle Master for example really needs to be played on an ST, same for its sequel, if you want optimal gameplay and graphics. Even better on STE.

Don't forget Hunter for Amiga and Atari st!

Hunter was already in the OP, the ST version.

Everything was mods back then, 4 channel protracker stuff with 8 bit samples, well mostly 3 channels and 1 channel for sfx (atleast on amiga) none of the computers had native midi support and all required hardware addons. there are however some games that support midi.

? ST had midi from the jump.

Do the particles cast shadows on the ground?

Holy shit...

I don't think there was anything as impressive in 1987, not even in the arcades.

It was a technical demonstration of the capabilities, and was ported to try and imitate it on other platforms with different names, but only the ST came somewhat close to the impressive consistency of the original, though the Amiga version was ok given the system it was on.

Nice thread!

I was not aware that atari st handled 3d better. I always thought amiga was superior in every way (when it came to gaming)

Was there a big framerate difference in the same game?

No, the chipset wasn't well suited for 2D, it was always build to handle sprites and be a 2D powerhouse or pull of scaling. it also had a slow processor for 3D.

it can pull some impressive feets though, but then on the other end you have games like Lip Stream which are....not great.

 

[alienator]

? ST had midi from the jump.

Yes the ST had a midi port, i should have said none, except the ST.
The amiga did not ( i had to buy a seperate device for it to hook my synths up for making music.)

but that wasnt really the point, all games used samples and no midi (except for some which support midi as an extra source)

 

[Buggy Loop]

I didn’t play the game back then, but looking at the tech behind Frontier Elite II, having the entire galaxy, with full planetary landing and seamless transfer to space, in fucking 1993??

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The Zarch Acorn game was called Virus on the Amiga btw

Gotta be careful when looking for accurate gameplay videos of games, especially with enhancements, emulators, or uncommon hardware..

This is Virus running on the Amiga



This is Virus running on an Amiga 1200


Video you showed is something that would run on a basic Arc in 87, Amiga ain't doing that lol. Maybe on some upgraded premium model and even then thats questionable and heading toward post-life stuff.

Was there a big framerate difference in the same game?

it's a difference going from the Amiga version for some reason jittering or having big drops out of nowhere, to the Amiga version running like a slide show. n small cases they are about even for more basic titles.

Amiga Mercenary III


running on ST


Mercenary III is a 3D open-world exploration game and the Amiga version makes it near unplayable. chunky movement is probably the biggest issue as you can see in the same starting area with the mailbox moving and even just turning in a circle is jerky while the ST version (mute the guy talking) s smooth. ST version also has cars more frequently going down the roads, in parts of the Amiga version they don't show at all. When you start going to more technical parts of the game, or going through vehicles the lower frame rate and lack of smoothness becomes an obvious liability. You can also see the difference in the ST gif in the OP compared to the Amiga video.

However, the Amiga is great at 2d games (skip to 1:07)


Talk about being obliterated in regards to 2D. also for most games, even 3D the Amiga while not running 3D as well did have the advantage of better audio/music, though in some cases that's up to personal preference, but in others the audio difference is massive, but considering that the ST was made in half a year and was made to be cheap that's not really a surprise. It actually makes it more impressive ST can handle 3D as well as it does.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I didn’t play the game back then, but looking at the tech behind Frontier Elite II, having the entire galaxy, with full planetary landing and seamless transfer to space, in fucking 1993??

It was a very ambitious title, in fact, some people dislike it because it was too big and thought it was cumbersome. Also action combat is not that common and that might the the biggest complaint for the game. but regardless it was a massively impressive feat.

I prefer Mercernary II and III for my open-world games though. Frontier drags a bit and takes awhile to get into.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Until Mercenary II Mercenary diidn't have filled pplygons though. Also II and III are more open-world GTA like. Mercenarys outline games were fun though and still are interesting to play now though not as good.

Yeah but it was also running on basically an Atari 5200. And in 1985 no less, like 2D scrolling platformers were just starting to exist when that game came out. And it WAS open world with a city map and all it was just very sparsely detailed. I mean really it was light-years ahead of everything in that design.

 

[itsjustJEFF]

The late 80's to early 90's... when we didn't care about frame rates, yet LOL those graphics were enough! That RoboCop 3 game looks pretty clean!

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Yeah but it was also running on basically an Atari 5200. And in 1985 no less, like 2D scrolling platformers were just starting to exist when that game came out. And it WAS open world with a city map and all it was just very sparsely detailed. I mean really it was light-years ahead of everything in that design.

? 2d scrolling games were picking up since 81. Even CV had several and it didn't even have hardware support for it like the A52 because it was the direction the industry was going, multiple scroll directions (which Japan locked to one direction going backwards ironically)

But yes, Mercenary was incredibly impressive for the time, never denied that. But II and III was when the devs finally got the hardware to make their intended vision a reality and it shows.

The late 80's to early 90's... when we didn't care about frame rates, yet LOL those graphics were enough! That RoboCop 3 game looks pretty clean!

Frame rates still mattered, that's why they marketed expensive expansions or to upgrade your model to one that could run not just games but even programs faster. Actually several of the ST games are smoother than people think, and the Acorn stuff is great. Galactic Dan was near as fast and in some areas faster than Dom on the then highest build you could use over one year earlier, and unlike Doom it used polygons, flat with star background yes, but that's still crazy since the game was based off the 80's dev configs.

 

[itsjustJEFF]

? 2d scrolling games were picking up since 81. Even CV had several and it didn't even have hardware support for it like the A52 because it was the direction the industry was going, multiple scroll directions (which Japan locked to one direction going backwards ironically)

But yes, Mercenary was incredibly impressive for the time, never denied that. But II and III was when the devs finally got the hardware to make their intended vision a reality and it shows.



Frame rates still mattered, that's why they marketed expensive expansions or to upgrade your model to one that could run not just games but even programs faster. Actually several of the ST games are smoother than people think, and the Acorn stuff is great. Galactic Dan was near as fast and in some areas faster than Dom on the then highest build you could use over one year earlier, and unlike Doom it used polygons, flat with star background yes, but that's still crazy since the game was based off the 80's dev configs.

unfortunately the PC's I had access to were not upgraded they we're terrible, but I was still blown away!

 

[amigastar]

Man, i remember F1 Grand Prix back in 91. Since then i'm a sim/racing fan.

 

[Vindicator]

Epic on the Amiga was quite nice (ofc better on PC), done by DID, also responsible for Robocop 3, their 3d stuff was quite smooth for the time.

 

[nkarafo]

This is Virus running on an Amiga 1200

Not bad for the 1200. Pretty big difference compared to the 500/1000.

I always thought the 1200 was a meh upgrade. The 68020 CPU it has is very weak and the AGA chipset was... shit? Dunno, i never got what's special about the AGA, even the Genesis/SNES had better looking games. And the CPU could not keep up with the likes of DOOM, which elevated the PCs as gaming platforms and completely killed the Amiga.

But this particular game proves that there was a big gap between the 500 and the 1200. I don't remember other games that show this so well.

This thread makes me wonder though.... Could the Archimedes run DOOM properly?

 

[SirTerry-T]

Epic on the Amiga was quite nice (ofc better on PC), done by DID, also responsible for Robocop 3, their 3d stuff was quite smooth for the time.

Those guys became Evolution Studios later on, so the pedigree for great 3d engines was already there. EF2000 was another great title of theirs.

Without trying to sound too jingoistic, it has to be said that at that time, the UK dev scene was filled with solo coder/designers and teams who were really helping to pioneer those early days of 3d titles,DID, Argonaut, Crammond, Woakes...

 

[Gusy]

Just wanted to drop by and say what a wonderful thread this is. Instant sub

I was a 100% NES kid.. and I had the luck to use an Amiga 500 that my grandfather bought. My first experience with a 3d game was with F-18 Interceptor back in 1989. When I figured how to change the camera angle on the external plane view.. my life changed. Been fascinated with 3D gaming ever since...

 

[Fafalada]

it's a difference going from the Amiga version for some reason jittering or having big drops out of nowhere, to the Amiga version running like a slide show. n small cases they are about even for more basic titles.

In all fairness - Virus was not what I'd consider well optimized Amiga title, especially when you compare how it ran on the Spectrum (which itself had games with similar visual make-up that ran better too - but that's another story):

The 8 bits were doing it before then....

Indeed - filled polygonal games were around since early 80ies.
But let's show-case some better titles though:

GTA3's grand-grand-daddy:


Flight-combat with filled graphics in the early 80ies.


Basically what you get if you cross Battlezone, Elite, Text Adventure/RPG, and a filled/polygonal-graphics engine with realtime-lighting model and somehow fit it inside 48K.


Carrier Command - again in 48K, with full polygons.

My first 3D games we're on the Atari XE in 1984 or something.

Rescue on Fractalus and its 'sequel' Koronis Rift, were really ahead of their time, it was essentially the 8bit take on a voxel-renderer, the same type that Comanche series eventually popularized on PC a decade+ later. And even C64 got its own version of it - albeit barely running.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

But this particular game proves that there was a big gap between the 500 and the 1200. I don't remember other games that show this so well.

This thread makes me wonder though.... Could the Archimedes run DOOM properly?

Arc can run Star Fighter of course it can run Doom.

Atari STE could run doom in a smaller window.

Atari Falcon can run ultimate doom with ease, and is arguably comparable in some ways to the Jaguar.

It's really just the Amiga that would have a problem with it, they did try a doom clone, a very bad pixelated one based on the AGA chipset. Alien Breed 3D I believe it was called, they also ported it to that failed game console and I believe it ran even worse on that but it's been awhile since I've seen it.


Theres a few games that show the gap between the Amiga 500 and 1200, Big Run is another one

In all fairness - Virus was not what I'd consider well optimized Amiga title, especially when you compare how it ran on the Spectrum

The post you quoted was about 3D games comparing the ST and Amiga in general not Virus. Most 3D games aren't optimized for the Amiga to be honest as that's not what it's focus was, but there are Amiga devs who have made 3D games optimized for it, or as much as they could.

 

[Fafalada]

It's really just the Amiga that would have a problem with it, they did try a doom clone, a very bad pixelated one based on the AGA chipset. Alien Breed 3D I believe it was called, they also ported it to that failed game console and I believe it ran even worse on that but it's been awhile since I've seen it.

There's a modern Doom engine now that actually runs playable on OCS / stock A500. But the author is building his own game with it, so we're unlikely to ever see a direct Doom replica, though it looks within realm of possibility.

The post you quoted was about 3D games comparing the ST and Amiga in general not Virus. Most 3D games aren't optimized for the Amiga to be honest as that's not what it's focus was, but there are Amiga devs who have made 3D games optimized for it, or as much as they could.

Yea I know - just was arguing there were better examples than Virus for the platform. Amiga's version of Elite, Carrier Command, Star Glider 2 all ran pretty well - albeit ST still ran them better (not sure about SG2, but at least the other two). But indeed for most part Amiga 3d games were just slower ports of ST version with better audio.
Heck even some of the exclusives were - not great like F18 Interceptor that just used stock Rom functions to render stuff.

 

[Fredrik]

Gotta be careful when looking for accurate gameplay videos of games, especially with enhancements, emulators, or uncommon hardware..

Just wanted to inform that the game is on Amiga too, but under a different name.

Tbh the videos you showed aren’t original quality either, 99.99% sure it’s emulated.

I’ve tried many times to record PAL Amiga stuff and it’s… not easy. You need a video capture device capable of doing PAL and if you manage to get a video it’ll still look like ass on a anything but a PAL screen. And if you try record the PAL screen with a camera you get bands wandering over the screen.

That’s my experience at least. Been trying to document how it actually was back then while my old stuff still works. Had an idea to record full playthroughs with loading times and floppy swappings and all.

Original Amiga 500 on an original Philips 8833-II monitor.

I’ve come close to modernize an Amiga 1200 though by using a DVI expansion and run the output in 100hz (2 duplicate frames on the screen per frame from the Amiga). That’s my plan B.

But. There is always a but. There is still a tiny tear line slooowly wandering over the screen, from the Amiga outputting 49.92hz, or something like that (don’t sue me if I’m wrong) and then doubled each frame and the screen updates in 100hz instead of… idk, 99.84hz maybe?

Anyway, Acorn version of Zarch/Virus looks splendid going by the videos in this thread. Never had an Acorn, looks like an interesting retro computer. I want one!
It was just Amiga 500 or Atari 520 ST people had during my days. And C64/C128 or Spectrum before that. I started with a Spectravideo, not very popular computer.
Eventually bought a C128 and became an annoying Commodore fanboy lol

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Just wanted to inform that the game is on Amiga too, but under a different name.

Tbh the videos you showed aren’t original quality either, 99.99% sure it’s emulated.

I’ve tried many times to record PAL Amiga stuff and it’s… not easy. You need a video capture device capable of doing PAL and if you manage to get a video it’ll still look like ass on a anything but a PAL screen. And if you try record the PAL screen with a camera you get bands wandering over the screen.

That’s my experience at least. Been trying to document how it actually was back then while my old stuff still works. Had an idea to record full playthroughs with loading times and floppy swappings and all.

Original Amiga 500 on an original Philips 8833-II monitor.

I’ve come close to modernize an Amiga 1200 though by using a DVI expansion and run the output in 100hz (2 duplicate frames on the screen per frame from the Amiga). That’s my plan B.

But. There is always a but. There is still a tiny tear line slooowly wandering over the screen, from the Amiga outputting 49.92hz, or something like that (don’t sue me if I’m wrong) and then doubled each frame and the screen updates in 100hz instead of… idk, 99.84hz maybe?

Anyway, Acorn version of Zarch/Virus looks splendid going by the videos in this thread. Never had an Acorn, looks like an interesting retro computer. I want one!
It was just Amiga 500 or Atari 520 ST people had during my days. And C64/C128 or Spectrum before that. I started with a Spectravideo, not very popular computer.
Eventually bought a C128 and became an annoying Commodore fanboy lol

Well I'm in the USA so don't have to worry about the PAL stuff from the 90's, or the 50fps on consoles luckily.

But even if Virus runs sub-par it's still an impressive title for the Amiga given its limitation.

 

[Crayon]

Nice thread. I actually want to play a number of these, now.